Conciliarism and Papalism ed. by J. H. Burns and Thomas M. Izbicki (review)

760BOOK REVIEWS sentation. It is completely satisfying in this respect. What is unfortunately lacking in this edition is an even modest introduction which would have enhanced the value of this tome for historians by noting the historical context of this register and some ofthe textual challenges the editor faced. The register ofJohn Waltham, bishop of Salisbury and Treasurer of England from 1391 to his death in 1395, is edited here in full. Typical ofmost English registers past the mid-fourteenth century, it was arranged topically according to the main areas of diocesan business.Whatever its original order, it suffered from the hands of well-intentioned seventeenth-century archivists who struggled to rationalize its arrangement. T. C. B. Timmins has taken great care in reorganizing the register as close to its original form as possible This same care is present throughout, from the reproduction of marginalia to the extensive and historically useful appendices that comprise roughly a third of the volume. These include non-registered letters from Waltham's correspondence, royal presentations to Salisbury benefices,visitation fragments, and the bishop's itinerary. This edition will be of considerable value for medieval English historians for a variety of reasons: the bishop's stature as a political figure in the reign of Richard II, his energetic pursuit of heretics in his diocese, and an exceptional devotion to parochial visitation. Records of the latter events, especially, indicate the sort of theological and religious currents prevailing in late fourteenth-century Salisbury . Unlike the Melton fragment, this register is fully translated or summarized in English, but in a style which seems more abbreviated and clipped than the economy of an edition would seem to warrant. Still, the historical content is indisputably here, and it is of considerable value for the historian and archivist . William J. Dohar, CS.C. University ofSan Francisco Conciliarism and Papalism. Edited byJ. H. Burns and Thomas M. Izbicki. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xxxiii, 315. $59-95 hardcover; $22.95 paperback.) Nearly a century after conciliarism's high-water mark at Constance, followed by a death knell with Pius ITs Execrabilis in 1460,its major points ofcontention bubbled up in 1511. The occasion was a council held in Pisa and then in Milan by a handful ofdissident cardinals backed by France's Louis XII,who was at war with Pope Julius II. In response,Julius II called the Fifth Lateran Council, which met beginning in 1512. The dueling councils and rhetoric renewed a debate about conciliar and papal authority chronicled in this new set of translations. First Cajetan, master general of the Dominicans, staunchly defended papal monarchy in his Auctoritaspapae et concilii sive ecclesiae comparata.Jacques Almain, barely two months after receiving his theology doctorate at Paris, answered Louis XITs call for a rebuttal. Claiming the supremacy of a general coun- BOOK REVIEWS761 cil over a pope, Almain argued that the Church is a collective body and the pope a delegated authority; the Church retains the right to defend herself, even if the danger comes from her own minister. The editors continue with Cajetan's answer and then add a coda to Almain's position drawn from John Mair's 1518 commentary on Matthew's gospel. The three authors pursue their central points by revisiting familiar questions: Tb whom did Christ bestow his authority ? What is the relationship between pope and general council, especially in the case study of an heretical pontiff? What is the nature of ministerial power? How should the Church and council be understood as a body or community with respect to its head? Who cannot fail: pope or council? The collection is very helpful because the juxtaposition of opposing viewpoints highlights their differences. The editors successfully walk a fine line between plodding and florid prose, a task that is especially difficult since the authors wrote in a very programmatic style. They allow the reader to hear the passion behind the debate, as when Almain with relish described Cajetan as "a man of learning—if only he had not marred his learning with the stain of flattery and striven to defame and revile with his insolent words the most holy Councils of Constance and Basel" (p. 134...